


feather light and fragile like glass bones

by possiblykatie



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Fluff, M/M, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possiblykatie/pseuds/possiblykatie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry doesn’t think he wants a savior, he doesn’t think he needs saving. He fills his stomach with pills that will empty it and he takes baths by himself so he can trail his long, lanky fingers over the rib-bones that now jut so far out from his skin he looks sick. He does this one night after he’s taken a handful of laxatives and all he’d had to eat that day was a half a slice of wheat bread, but so what?</p><p>     His eyes fall shut and his head rolls back against the wall and Niall finds him like that, a little more than asleep and a little less than dead.</p><p>alternatively: the one in which harry suffers an eating disorder and niall just wants to kiss him happy</p>
            </blockquote>





	feather light and fragile like glass bones

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a matter of 45 minutes but I really wanted to do this, the world needs more Narry. Sorry for any mistakes and the ridiculous short-ness of this. I don't have a beta. Change that? 
> 
> Comments are cool, but y'know, nobody asks for those.
> 
> This is my first Narry btw.
> 
> xox :*

     Niall thinks Harry looks fragile and thin. Harry thinks Niall looks perfect, even though he does have a bit of muscle. Harry spends every meal counting the calories he puts into his stomach.

     (If he puts any.)

     Niall watches with a pain-filled stare and tries not to show his concern. He’s noticed Harry skipping meals and locking himself in the bathroom if he doesn’t. Harry pushes food around on his plate and he tries to make it look like he ate something.

     Niall kisses his wrists every night before bed and tells Harry how beautiful he is. He knows Harry thinks he’s oblivious and he knows his efforts don’t help, but anything just to remind him that he doesn’t need to be as light as a feather.

     Some days are worse than others – like when Harry thinks he’s so fat he won’t even let Niall in their room. He closes the door and puts a chair under the knob so he can’t get in.

     It all goes downhill so quickly and Niall doesn’t know how to stop it, but he really does try. He’ll whisper to Harry when they make love about how beautiful he is. He’ll tell him how tiny and frail he has started looking, but Harry won’t listen. He won’t listen. He gets to the point he wants and it’s not small enough by then, so he counts more numbers and takes more pills and locks himself up for even longer.

     Harry doesn’t think he wants a savior, he doesn’t think he needs saving. He fills his stomach with pills that will empty it and he takes baths by himself so he can trail his long, lanky fingers over the rib-bones that now jut so far out from his skin he looks sick. He does this one night after he’s taken a handful of laxatives and all he’d had to eat that day was a half a slice of wheat bread, but so what?

     His eyes fall shut and his head rolls back against the wall and Niall finds him like that, a little more than asleep and a little less than dead.

     The lady in the white gown makes Harry go for treatment, because he has an “eating-disorder”. He’s not sure what they called it because he’s still so tired. How long had he even been sleeping?

     The next months he spends alone in the hospital with phone calls few and far from Niall and his mum and letters that come in yellowed envelopes days after they were sent. He reads them all and stashes them in his pillowcases and sleeps on the memories of soft kisses and warm cups of green tea that they won’t allow him any longer.

     Harry doesn’t think he’s sick.

     He gets out of treatment and he goes home to Niall and things are different. Harry is happier but he’s not frail and fragile anymore and he hates it. Niall checks all the drawers and all the cabinets for weight-loss pills or anything of substance. Harry gets headaches from the dull light in their apartment, so they keep Aspirin and nothing else.

     Niall goes back to telling Harry he’s beautiful and kissing his bones which don’t jut out as much, and Niall thinks he’s more beautiful now than ever. Harry thinks he’s disgusting but they have him on suicide watch, and he doesn’t allow himself to shut Niall off because he thinks he needs Niall just as much as Niall needs him.

    Things are hard for a while and Harry hasn’t fully recovered – skipping meals here and there and forcing his food back up. But every night when he doesn’t, Niall tells him he’s beautiful and he’s proud and he loves them.

     It breaks Harry when Niall skips a meal one night, he’s so afraid Niall will pick up his habits and so he sits the boy down and feeds him.

     Niall will hold Harry close and sing him sweet lyrics and they’ll sleep under the stars and Harry thinks it’s okay that he isn’t small and frail (though he kind of wishes he was as thin as those girls on the covers of magazines and movies) because Niall is what he always needed. He was right there and Harry just never opened his eyes to see it.

     On Harry’s year anniversary since he was released from treatment, Niall makes sweet love to him in a room lit by candles, and roses all over the floor. He kisses every crook and crevice and tells Harry _it’s okay_ , and _let it out, come on._ And Harry has never felt anything more beautiful than he does than night in Niall’s arms.

 


End file.
